Tucumcari, NM

Transfigured Night

by Jeff Baker

Here’s a couple of stories from my long (4,000+ miles!) drive from Wichita through Arizona, New Mexico and California and back again.

“We left for Frisco in your Rambler…” —Diesel, Sausilito Summernight

I left the kitties with my Brother’s family in Western Kansas in early June 2024 and barreled out to drive to San Francisco, California (actually Livermore!) to scatter Darryl’s ashes in the Bay. I packed water, food bars and notebooks along with necessities like clothes. But I had a multiple purpose in driving out there.

The route I was taking was through New Mexico and Arizona. Decades ago I had family in the Southwest and I wanted to see a few places again. (I planned a stop in Albuquerque where my Great-Grandmother and Great-Aunt had lived for the trip back. I almost didn’t realize I was in Albuquerque because of the high wall on the highway!) I drove through New Mexico, gawked at the beauty of the desert and continued on into Arizona.

My plan was to do the trip in two stages; I had originally planned to drive to Needles, CA and stay the night, but I changed it to a stop in Flagstaff, Arizona. That would make it a ten-hour drive both days. Well, actually a twelve-hour drive as I stopped to use the loo and do just a bit of sightseeing.

I took note of the signs for turnoffs to the Grand Canyon (been there about 50 years ago!) and Phoenix. We had gone through Phoenix on our way to the Grand Canyon about 1973 or so. Not this time.

So twelve hours it was and I was getting pooped when I hit Flagstaff (a really beautiful area!) found a Super 8 Motel just off the highway and pulled in to the parking lot. The clock on my dashboard said about 6:00pm.

But that wasn’t quite right—I had crossed into the Arizona Time Zone and it was about Four in the afternoon. I realized that through a quirk of geography I had two extra hours and that I had arrived for my first overnight stay in late afternoon, just like my Grandparents and I did when we would drive to Albuquerque from Wichita decades ago. I checked in, unpacked, set my alarm and crashed. Woke up a few hours later, heated up the food I brought (thank you Super 8 Motel for microwaves and cups in the rooms!) and sat around watching videos on my smartphone.

At no point during either of my motel stays on the trip did I even think of turning on the television.

Alarm set I snoozed and got up before the alarm, somewhere around five thirty to throw my stuff into my bag, toss the stuff into my car, check out and continue the drive to California.

I’ll go into more of my adventures getting to Livermore another time. Right now I want to talk about the return trip, heading back to my Brother’s house from Flagstaff and another Super 8 Motel and losing two hours.

I slept in more than I should, had breakfast at the motel (Yum! No, really!) and hit the road about seven-ish or so. I’ll go into my first visit to Albuquerque in 45 years in a later post. But here’s what happened after I left there.

Pretty simple heading back to Tucumcari, New Mexico on I-40 but I got turned around looking for Highway 54 in the dusk there—it was not clearly marked. I had to ask directions. Stupid! I came in on the road heading to the mountain two weeks earlier, and even took a picture! I should just go away from the mountain on the only paved road heading to/away from it. Finally did that and headed through Arizona, a bit of Texas and the Oklahoma Panhandle, Highway 54 a two lane highway, feeling very much like a backroads trip or like I was on the highway in the 1960s. I fueled up and used the facilities at a convenience store in maybe Dalhart as the wind was whipping up and it did sprinkle on me just a bit during the trip. My companion through those late-night hours was the SIRIUS XM radio station “Radio Classics” which was playing episodes of the fun show “Yours Truly, Johnny Dollar.” Somehow the 40s/50s ambiance fit with the ancient-seeming back road drive in the dark.

I hit Kansas after midnight and pulled into my Brother’s driveway about One in the morning. Sat there for a few minutes relieved to be back. Texted the family to tell them I was finally there and wondered what my kitties would think of me bailing and leaving them. I needn’t have worried. I unlocked the door and went in through the back porch, snuck downstairs in the quiet house and left my bags (and laptop) in the guest room. Then I hopped upstairs to grab something from the fridge.

At least one of my kitties greeted me, sort of indifferently like they hadn’t noticed I was gone. But they were sweet. It was good to be at the home-away-from-home.

I ate, hopped back downstairs, checked mail and then crashed, realizing that if I ever got back to California I wouldn’t be doing the driving but I was glad I did it this way this time!

Woke up next afternoon and wandered through the house. Nobody there but me and the kitties.

—end—

——jeff baker, July 31, 2024.

NOTE: Borrowed the title from a piece by Arnold Schoenberg. —-j

End Milage, Hugoton, KS

Motel, Flagstaff, AZ